Welcome to the Stone Oak Bible Church pod. This is a new thing we're trying out, a new ministry extension of Stone Oak Bible Church. Our hope for this is that we can have some casual conversation regarding important topics and discussing current events and things that are happening around not only our church, but our world as well. So this morning, this is Craig, by the way, and I'm joined with Justin. Say hi, Justin.

This morning, we're gonna discuss an important topic that we see within the life of our church and something that we feel is very important for just overall for our church. And we're gonna discuss the topic of biblical church leadership and what that looks like for us specifically is elders and deacons. So, let me ask you this question first and foremost. Why is this where we're wanting to start?

We start here, because it matters, not just because we're we are nerds, but it's not just because we're nerds and love structure. It's because we love the church and scripture is so clear that Jesus loves his church. And leadership conversations like this, when we look at what the Bible says about leadership, it really does shape a church. It shapes our health, our mission, and and who and and who we are. And and scripture is speaks to this and talks not only about what, but why it matters.

What

was your upbringing like, Justin, as far as elders and deacons and kind of staff? What was that relationship between kind of those three organizations?

I don't think I have ever been in a church except for ours now that has had all of those categories. So I did not grow up in a church that had kind of elders and deacons and staff. I grew up in a very staff heavy church or one elder, maybe a group of guys that call themselves deacons, but never altogether. And so my background, I did not see this all coming together.

Yeah. I think mine would be similar to that. I grew up in a staff heavy church. It's where leadership was primarily done through the lead pastor that was kind of the head leader. And then alongside of that, had I grew up in a Southern Baptist realm where we were poor with language and our deacons technically fulfilled the role of elder, but we like to call them deacons instead of elder.

And so I grew up with only two of the three being represented. I grew up with just staff and deacons. Yet, I think it was kind of during my time of seminary that I really saw there's three kind of roles that I would see within the life of the church as far as leadership, which I think are kind of what we're discussing now. Churches have different ways of doing this as far as elders and deacons and staff as well. Why do we, Stone Oak Bible Church, choose to do things in this way?

I'm gonna give an answer that I don't want to come off. I'm just gonna give it. In the Bible, scripture talks about certain offices that the church has. Yeah. And so the most foundational way to answer this question is because the Bible speaks about elders and speaks about deacons.

And because the Bible speaks about them in the church, that is our foundation for why we look at this and see this not only as what the church had back then, but as a, Hey, this is what a healthy church should have going forward today. So the question is, how do we live it out today? Scripture gives us this. Now, how do we live it out?

Okay. Whenever you discuss language in Scripture as well, there's a lot of differing words that are used throughout Scripture. Think of kind of bishop is a common or apostle even.

Yep. Overseer. Shepherd. Teacher.

Yep. With kind of all of those different language pieces, how do we figure out what terms are used interchangeably? What terms are exclusive?

Yeah. You see this especially with the office of elder. Uh-huh. In scripture, you're gonna see the word elder. You're gonna see the word overseer, bishop, shepherd, and all of those terms really are pointing to one in the same office coming from different angles.

And so you see overseer, you see it carries more of a responsibility, you see Pastor Shepherd pointing to the care aspect, but it's dealing with the same They're synonymous terms, and they're used interchangeably when it comes to elders. Even putting the word pastor. So one of the things at our church that a lot of people ask about is who are the pastors and who are the elders? And at our church, we see biblically that these terms are the same. And so we do not have elders who are not pastors, and we do not have pastors who are who are not elders.

They're the same. Now some of them are staff elders and some are lay elders. Some are teach do more teaching. So there are differences, but it's the same office, same responsibility scripturally, even though the words point to different functions.

You said two key words in there that I'd love for you to define. One, you said staff elders. Yep. And the other word you said was lay elders. You're using an adjective to describe elders.

What is the distinction between a staff elder and who would that be in our specific context and a lay elder?

So staff elder is someone who is paid, by the church for their role as an elder. And so in our context, that would be myself as lead pastor or lead elder, and that would be you as executive pastor or executive elder. And then the other term is lay, which simply means not paid. And so we have six elders total taking you and I out. That's four additional elders that are not paid.

And according to the way we are governed, we always want more lay elders than paid elders just for care, for responsibility and all of that. And so we always want to be a combination of both in that.

Let me back up one second here and ask, I think, a theological question. And is it the elders that truly lead the church? Who is the ultimate leader or authority for the church as a whole and then for Stonoak Bible Church specifically?

Yeah, this is a good question. The answer is yes and no. And and what I mean by this is ultimately no. This is, not my church. This is not the elders church.

This is Jesus' church. He leads his church, and all leadership within the church flows from that. First Peter calls Jesus the chief shepherd. So although the church has shepherds, we are under shepherds of the chief shepherds in the language of scripture. And then Ephesians talks about Jesus being the head of the church, not an elder, but Jesus being the head of the church.

And and the elders there are are now stewards under Jesus's leadership of his church. And and I I don't wanna say this to, like, downgrade the importance of human elders. Actually, the exact opposite. Because Jesus loves and leads his church, then now we have this incredible responsibility as elders to be faithful under shepherds under him. But ultimately, he leads the church.

And how does that actually work then? Christ is not physically present with us at an elder meeting table, yet we acknowledge that he is the leader of our specific church. So on a practical standpoint, how does that work?

You know, one of the, as you said that, one of the scariest, I don't want to say, it is scary, scriptures. One of the ways this works is in Hebrews when it talks about how elders one day we will give an account. And I think that accounting is part of what this looks like of knowing that one, Jesus leads his church through his presence in his people and through his word he leads us, we are under his authority, but then two, to know that at the end of all of this that all of us will stand before Jesus to ultimately give an account for how we loved and led and served his flock, which that is a daunting it is a it is a weight. It's a weighty thing.

Yeah. So, as we're kind of looking at this, I'd love to do a couple of things. One, I'd love to just discuss the role of elder, discuss the role of deacon, looking more towards kind of definition and what they are, and then transition to, do we still need them today?

Yeah. Good question.

And finally, if so, how are they utilized here within our context? So, we've discussed elders a couple of times already. We've discussed that language piece of bishop, of overseer, of shepherd, of the language we choose to use of pastor. What else would you like to kind of mention regarding just that role of elders, what they actually are?

Yeah. We see elders, I believe for the first time in Acts 14, as the church grows and as it's spreading, elders, plural, are appointed in every church. And this really sets a tone and sets a trajectory that we see all throughout the New Testament. So the first thing I'll say is that elders are meant to be plural. Okay.

There's a plurality of elders appointed in each church, and as the church spreads, this is kind of the norm. Not only that, there's qualifications given to us in Timothy and Titus about who these men are supposed to be. So character matters when you're looking at elders and as we'll see in deacons as well. Character matters. And so these men are called to be godly men who exemplify the characteristics of first Timothy and Titus.

And they're given these responsibilities of oversight, of guarding the flock Yeah. Of teaching sound doctrine, making sure that sound doctrine is being taught, shepherding and caring. I don't want to forget the whole leading by example piece of this too, practicing what they preach. And really, it's a protection role as well to protect the church from abuse, from theological wandering, drift, in doctrine. So it's huge role that is it's an oversight role of that that also has the proclamation of the word, prayer, and care for the congregation all wrapped in to this to this role.

One of the the statements that you made was that we see elders as plural in the New Testament. And correct me if I'm wrong, I believe whenever you did your master's work, this was a large topic of what you kind of had to write a large paper on was the necessity of the plurality of elders. What are some practical wisdom pieces of having multiple elders? Along with that, can you just maybe discuss the difference in unity and uniformity How of do you see unity working outside of everybody thinking and acting the exact same on a kind of practical standpoint? Yeah.

Speak to

the first part. Plurality is a protection for the church, from power grabs and, from the church taking on the personality and agenda of any one man. Plurality of elders means that we share the responsibility and stewardship before Jesus. And there's checks and there's balances in that. And so, plurality of eldership means that that that it it protects the church from being hijacked in in that way.

And and so, that doesn't mean, going to your unity and uniformity thing, doesn't mean that around the elder table that there's always going to be perfect, We all see it the same way. And yes, men, that that's not healthy either. When when you when you think that's kind of a uniformity way of looking at it where everyone has to say the same thing, think the same thing, and if you don't, then get out. Healthy elders know how to have healthy, robust conversations and differences. And at the end of that discussion, walk away in unity for the good of the church and and for, the good of the people.

And so plurality and shared leadership lets the church walk in that way, not not uniformity, but in unity together.

Yeah. There's I think there's an unspoken thing here happens with elders. As we look at first Timothy and Titus, we look at these qualifications. The qualifications are, I hate to say it, but rather simple. There's nothing extravagant to them.

There's nothing incredibly original to them. Let me ask just a blunt question. Are the elders at Stonemark Bible Church without sin? No. Okay.

Okay. Good. That's two answers Yeah, to absolutely. But at the same time, they, from my understanding, should be setting the example for the Christian life, for what it looks like within the context of our church. How do those two things work?

You should read one Timothy and Titus with the elder in mind and not be shocked that that person is an elder. It should be, Yes, that is the kind of man who does that. That is the kind of man who models that. In perfection, no, that's Jesus. But but that it should not be you shouldn't read first Timothy's qualifications and then think about the elder of your church and go, wait, what?

That doesn't It should make sense. It should make sense.

Okay. Yeah, that's good. So let's transition now from elders and let's look at deacons.

This one's a harder one.

So we move from elders. We see probably the first glimpse, Acts 14, deacons. And let me just ask an overall question. Do we see elders or deacons in the Old Testament? Why why not?

We see versions, but no. These are these are New Testament church offices. So although the you do see the word elder in the Old Testament. Yes. You see elders of the people.

Absolutely. Leaders within the congregation. Yes. Absolutely. But what we're talking about in in the New Testament is an establishment of a of a church office, a new office within the church, and that doesn't exist before the church exists.

So what we see here is kind of a new a new office from for God's people in the church. And and so although you see the words in the Old Testament, I would argue that this is a we're dealing with an office here that that starts with the church as as, the church expands.

Okay. So let's let's transition out to deacons. Where do we see We see them first.

We see them before elders, which is something that is is fun. You see in Acts six, you see the apostles who first identify and, and affirm the first deacons.

Mhmm.

And in Acts six, you see it's a funny story because the the gospel's going out and people are coming to Jesus and people are being saved and it's God's doing amazing things. And in the midst of that, there's complaints happening that people within the church are getting missed and neglected.

So the early church was not perfect.

They weren't perfect. The apostles are going, Uh-oh, what do we do with this? So Turns out they

didn't have all of the answers there.

No, they did not. And so they said, Hey, we need to identify godly men who can step up in this role to make sure that the word and prayer are not neglected and that people are not missed or overlooked. Okay. And so they they identify these man these men, and they pray over them. Probably the most popular deacon in the Bible is Stephen.

The man's incredible. And so they affirm these men, establish these men. What I love is right after that happens, believe it's verse seven of Acts six, talks about how the word increased all the more and people came to faith all the more. It's because when the word and prayer and people are not neglected, God does a work in his church, and the deacons helped that happen.

Yeah. Let's fast forward to kind of a modern day context. What would it look like in a modern day context to focus only on word and prayer and neglect people? What would what would as you're imagining this, what would that church look like to you?

I think it would look like the way we assess if we're we're doing well. It's like, at the end of the day, did we preach the word? Yes. Are we in prayer? Yes.

Alright. Then we're good. When the reality is is that there will be people that come through our doors who have needs and are hurting. Did we meet them? Did we know?

Did we see them? Those are questions that it could be easily overlooked. What's hard is we don't even know what we don't know. We might be missing people. We might not even know about their needs.

It's not that we're saying, I don't care. I don't want to know your needs. It's that we don't even know. We're so caught up in other things. And what's beautiful about the role of Deacon is they help us not miss people who would fall through the cracks.

Okay. With us specifically, we're a church that we've seen numerical growth recently. How does that help specifically you as the lead pastor of Stone Up Bible Church? As you look out, I'm assuming it's not like the days of early for us to where you know everybody that is sitting there, you know everybody's stories and needs, and you can name all of their children. As we're growing, how do you see the need for Deacons even increasing right now?

They're more necessary now than they have ever been. I'll speak for us collectively as elders, if we collectively as elders are gonna do what the Bible calls us to do and shepherd in love and care for our people, We can't do that if we don't know them. We can't do that if they're slipping out the back door. We can't do that if and and as we grow, the the potential of that happening just goes way up and up and up. And and so the need for godly biblical deacons in our church today is greater than it has ever been, ever been.

And that's why we are been in prayer and identifying more deacons to bring in in our church right now so that we're able to meet these needs in a in a way that honors Jesus, the head of the church. And and so this is this is massive. This is this I can preach the word till I pass out. Yeah. But if I don't know the people, then I when I stand before Jesus, I'm gonna give an account for that.

And deacons help share that load, come beside us so that we're able to meet those needs.

Okay. And within our context, how do you see the difference between an elder and a deacon? Because my assumption is elders as shepherds know the sheep. Yes. And yet deacons at the same time, as we're growing, we see a greater need for elders and for deacons.

And so looking at those two offices, those two roles, what are the distinctions between what an elder does and does not do possibly and what a Deacon does and does not do?

Yeah, they are meant to go side by side partnering. However, the distinction here is that elders focus on shepherding the church through oversight and through teaching and through, direction, big direction.

Hit those. Those are big words there. Oversight. What do you mean?

Oversight means protecting the church from from, going in directions that that we should not be going. It is it is it is almost like zooming out and looking at the big picture of the church and making sure, like, how are we doing? How are we faithful here? Are we faithful there? It's oversight means making decisions that impact to the whole, not just the parts, but the whole.

That is massive. That's a role of the elder. We're supposed to zoom out. Okay. We're supposed to zoom out.

And for Stone Oak, how does that actually happen? Are we meeting daily? Are we meeting weekly? Do we have a Sunday morning gathering of elders all come together before service every single Sunday? What is the rhythm of elders within our context?

We meet monthly And

there are seasons that we go through where we call more often. We meet more often. We call more meetings to deal with certain things. And there are also seasons that come, like in the summer, for example, where we may meet a little less often. So it kind of flows with the seasons of the church.

But we need to be often enough to where when we get together, we have an awareness of what's going on in our church and we're not starting from scratch. Yeah. It'd be great if it was daily, but

So you hear of the church down the road and they have elders. Yep. And they give you a frequency that makes you feel uncomfortable as far as their meeting way too little. What would that frequency be for you if they say, hey, as elders meet Quarterly. Quarterly.

I think that would be way that's not frequent enough. If I had it my way, I really love our elders and I would love to gather with them weekly, but that's not real. It's not possible. So I would push for more often, but monthly is good. In the past, we've also done one where we not only meet for business and oversight, but we also meet for prayer and for shepherding.

And so all of these things need to happen. That takes time in together, and that's important. One of the things you asked too is when you asked about the differences between elder and deacon, one of the other roles is teaching. And if you compare in in first Timothy and Titus, both of them have qualifications for elders and right after qualifications for deacons. Yes.

One of the bigger the the differentiation between the two is the ability to teach, the ability to to handle the word of God. That is a responsibility that is put on the shoulders of an elder, but it's not put on the shoulders of a deacon. That doesn't mean that all elders must be preaching elders, but it does mean that all elders wear the weight to differentiate between what is right and sound and how to apply the word of God. That is something that elders wear that biblically deacons don't. Although the first deacon, Stephen, was a mean preacher and was incredible.

So it doesn't mean they don't, but it just that is not something that's on their shoulders.

So within our context specifically, as we were looking at teaching and elders, where you mentioned preaching, the pulpit. Is there any other avenue that you would say this is reserved for or primarily for elders alone?

That's good question.

Or how we practically kind of live that out?

We kind of practically live it out by pulpit and communion. So in our church, our elders are the ones who lead us, lead our congregation through the Lord's Supper every Sunday morning. And that's an elder task. It's a handling of the word. It's shepherding piece.

It's all of those things kind of coming together. But outside of that, have a lot of non elder teachers. We have community group leaders that facilitate conversations. We have seminars that are led by some elders, some not. We have you know, there's a lot of teaching that happens at our church that is taught by non elders.

However, all of it needs to be done under the oversight of elders. I think that is what scripture is getting at when it when it says that elders need to be need to have the ability to teach and to protect sound doctrine.

Okay. With that, as the church grows, there there is more teaching opportunity. Yep. There's more community groups that are needed. There's more community leaders that are needed.

There's more teachers in classroom spaces for children's ministry. Is there ever like a point where we're like, Hey, that's too many elders. Like what? Yes. You know, we're a church of two fifty, we have six elders right now.

Does that mean if we're a church of 500 that we then have 12 elders? Like, is there is there a ratio that you have in mind for elders to congregation? Or is it whatever kind of fits in that moment?

It's a good question. I see this as more of in each season asking God what would be wise for our church right now. Right now at this point, Six Elders is serving our church faithfully. There might come a point where we look and we say, you know what, it's not serving. Do we need more?

However, another thing is we're doing this right now for Deacons. Right now, the reason we are searching and bringing on new Deacons is because we look around and say, it's not right right now. How many do we have right now? We have three.

Okay.

And we need at least seven.

Okay.

And one of the reasons why is because the bigger need of people slipping through the cracks. And with this new you know, with the Deacons that we're looking to to bring on, one of the biggest things that we need is for these deacons to have eyes and ears and to be able to see what's happening in our church and with our people as they come and as they go. So yeah, I think each season that we step into as a church, we need to ask what is wise for us. Do we need more? Do we need more elders?

Do we need more deacons? And just kind of tackle it as it happens.

One of the things you've mentioned a couple of times regarding specifically the role of deacon is meeting practical needs. Can you give me examples? What would fall into the practical need category in

your There's quite a few. One that maybe no one thinks about is something like benevolence. Like when we have needs What within our church, yeah, it that is is when we have people who have needs and they come to our church and they ask, hey, I need this. I need I'm gonna get kicked out of my house. Need rent or, you know, whatever the need might be, a car or, you know, my car broke down, stuff like that, benevolence things.

When they come, our deacons are tasked with the responsibility to engage and define what is wise, how do we serve, how do we come around these needs in our church. So that's a practical need. Another one is we're mobile. Yes, we are. So, you know, our deacons kind of help us make sure our facilities are set up for us to be able to worship together.

Well, that's a that's a very practical thing. Know, another one that I wanna I don't wanna miss is the people aspect of this, of our deacons making sure that we are aware of the needs within our congregation. This is another very practical thing that our deacons are kind of commissioned to do, to care for those practical needs of, hey, we have a widow in our church who can't handle her yard right now. We need to come around this. Like, it's stuff like that.

That's very practical, very tangible things that they see.

Okay. Just kind of wrapping things up now. A couple of things. Number one, how do I, as a member or a church attender, how do I let people know of needs? Let's say there's that exact aspect of what you just said of, hey, you know what?

We're struggling right now. Making ends meet and like our grocery bill is astronomical and we need some financial help. How does that happen? What do I need to do next? Or maybe it's a, Hey, I can't take care of my lawn maintenance this week because X, Y, and Z has occurred within our household.

How do we make that known? What does that look like? Historically

and in our community, this has been something we struggle with a lot. We are self sufficient, independent, take pride in the fact that we don't need anyone. And so I say that to say, as a pastor, as a leader in the church, if I am reliant on people to self report, I think I'm already behind. So yes, if you have a need, please let us know. Like, that's incredible.

But I know that for most people hearing me tell you that you're not going to do it. And so I think faithfulness as a leader in the church is do we know the people enough to know that there are needs even when they aren't self reporting those needs? And so that comes from relationships, that comes from being known and knowing people in our community, our church community, and that reemphasizes the point of why I as a pastor can't do it all, why we can't do it all, why we need godly deacons and biblical elders to do this work so that we can know when there are needs, especially for those who do not self report. I know that the benevolence requests that we get typically will come from outside of our church, not in. It's come from people we don't know who come in and say, Hey, this is a church, maybe they can help me.

There's nothing wrong with that. But far, so much less frequent is when our people come to us and say, I'm hurting. That doesn't happen all that often, to be honest, here in our community. It doesn't happen. You almost have to be I mean, can't tell you how many times I find out someone's been in the hospital for a month.

Yeah, absolutely.

And they never told anyone. And so that's more of what I see us needing deal with. I'd love it if people self report it, but they don't.

That's the aspect of knowing and being known.

Yeah. It's community.

Yeah. Okay. And then kind of last thing, as we look at the role of elder and deacons, they are a service role to the congregation. Both elders and deacons are both service roles. How can we, as the congregation, serve our elders and serve our deacons?

What are the ways that we can be in support of elders and in support of deacons?

That is a great question. I believe it is Hebrews 13 that speaks directly to this. It says, obey your leaders and submit to them. This is verse 17. For they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. And he encouraged them to pray for them and encourages them to serve them as they seek to serve Christ in the church. And so, you know, with that, I think there's clear things in scripture that that, you know, as a church, you can do for your leaders. One of the things that I want to add to that, though, is I think it's easy to think of elders and deacons as kind of an other than us kind of category. Yeah.

Like they're them, and they're like a special tier of Christian. And that's not true. What I think would be really healthy for our church is to realize that, one, Jesus could be calling you to serve in one of those offices, to aspire to one of these offices, to aspire to serve the church in this way. And then two, to realize that these guys are just They need prayer. They need friends.

They're people. They're not other than you. They are you. And I think that is a huge way you can serve the leaders of your churches to realize they're your brothers in Christ and to pray for them and to come alongside of them and to ask them how they are doing. To what I love about the writer of Hebrews says, Let them do it with joy.

Let them serve in this role of joy. Don't be a pain and make them groan. I love the way he puts that.

But it's true. It's true. Yeah. Well, Justin, hey, we're wrapping this up. Anything else you want to to mention or say regarding just, specifically these two offices of elders and

deacons? Yeah. Just encourage anyone hearing this to pray for their leaders, like right now by by name. And that includes if you call Stone Oak Bible Church your home. But if you're listening to this and and you're a part of another congregation, pray for them today by name because healthy leadership in the church makes healthy churches for the glory of God.

And so pray for your leaders and and pray for them by name. That's my encouragement as we close.

Excellent. Hey. It's a great conversation. Appreciate you. Appreciate our elders that we get to serve alongside with, as well as our current Deacons and as we're looking to bring some new guys on our our future deacons.